Whether buying or selling, letting or leasing commercial property, your business can depend upon us to provide first class legal support.
The services we offer include:
- Conveyancing
- Granting, selling, buying or assigning leases
- Licences and guarantees
- Rent review advice
- Advice on the enforcement of landlord or tenant rights
- Breach of covenant and other lease terms
- Mortgages
- Planning and local authority matters
- Landlord and Tenant Act 1954
- Guidance on the Code of Practice for commercial leases in England and Wales
We act for buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants, lenders and borrowers, guarantors and others.
We understand that business clients expect a personal service tailored to their individual needs, rather than the commoditised products of some legal services providers that better suits themselves than their clients.
We will always offer advice, and negotiate on behalf of our clients in order to achieve the outcome they require, whilst remaining ever conscious of the need to minimise cost. We will advise and guide, but never presume to make decisions for you, and above all, we will listen.
Head of Commercial Property Department: Mark Barrett - Partner
Whether you be a landlord with a portfolio of a hundred properties, or you have inherited a single tenanted corner shop, you will need expert advice and guidance on terminating or renewing occupational leases.
The rules are still complex, despite the recent much welcomed relaxations, and a failure to comply strictly with time limits and procedures can have devastating consequences.
The potential for tenants to “get it wrong”, with similarly disastrous consequences, is no less acute in the absence of appropriately qualified guidance.
We aim to take the complexity and risk out of the processes with careful guidance, delivered with an understanding of most business peoples’ dislike of jargon and bureaucratic detail.
Head of Department: Ben Upward - Partner
Businesses have different and changing needs for property, and there are many different solutions on which we can advise including both commercial freehold and leasehold ownership.
Our team has a wealth of experience in dealing with freehold or leasehold sales and purchases of offices, shops, warehouses, factories, hotels, nursing homes and more specialised premises.
Our driving principles are advice and negotiation, with the aim of delivering the right solution for all our clients. We listen to your requirements, advise on the means of achieving them, and on other alternatives that may be available. We believe that firm and expert negotiation is an essential element of the process of achieving your aims.
Head of Commercial Property Department: Ben Upward - Partner
A well drafted lease is the best way to avoid disputes between landlord and tenant. The limitless array or personalities and circumstances will inevitably mean that they will occasionally occur.
Early, practical and cost effective advice on a range of solutions is the key to the satisfactory resolution of such disputes. Whether you are a landlord or a tenant it is important to respond quickly to potential difficulties over rent payments, repairs, rent reviews, unlawful occupation or use, and breach of other covenants. The employment of appropriate advice at an early stage can prevent a difficulty developing into a costly dispute.
We strive to reach settlements without recourse to the courts, but if necessary our litigation department is able to provide firm, careful and pragmatic assistance in dealing with disputes that have not been resolved by other means.
Head of Department: Ben Upward - Partner
Leasehold law and practice has evolved rapidly over the past twenty years, and continues to do so at a fast rate.
Keeping up to date with developments in the law and in practical approaches to old and new problems is key to our success in negotiating lease renewals for landlords and for tenants.
Problems in the future can be avoided by investing sufficient care in the process of agreeing the lease and dealing with associated arrangements such as guarantees, rent deposit deeds, rent reviews and licences.
We never forget that clients' needs differ, and we endeavour to approach every new matter in an appropriate and innovative way, that matches individual client’s expectations.
Head of Commercial Property Department: Ben Upward - Partner
Including Estate Purchases and Plot Sales
We act for a number of property developers and have a wealth of experience in carrying out the legal work in acquiring sites for both residential and commercial development, setting up schemes for plot sales or leases, and dealing with the individual disposals.
Care and due diligence is essential throughout the acquisition process, so as to avoid difficulties on re-sales.
We are experienced in carrying out the wider range of searches and enquiries that is necessary for development land, and in dealing with such ancillary matters as highway, sewer and planning agreements, easements for access and services, delineating boundaries, planning permissions and building regulation consents.
Head of Commercial Property Department: Ben Upward - Partner
